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Rare prehistoric statues reunited at McClung Museum

David Dye by Memphis University/Special to the News Sentinel These two rare prehistoric Native American figures are currently reunited on exhibit at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. The female figure on the right belongs to a private collector; the male figure on the left is owned by the McClung.(Photo: David H.Dye)

This 18-inch-tall sandstone figure of a man was carved between 1250 to 1350 and was found in Wilson County in 1939. The sculpture has been named Tennessee's official state artifact. Special to the News Sentinel (Photo: Special to the News Sentinel)

Two prehistoric Native American sandstone statues, discovered on a Tennessee farm nearly 80 years ago, are now shown together at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. The rare figures are exhibited through this year but museum supporters hope they'll become a permanent pair.

One of the statues, a kneeling male figure sometimes called 'Sandy,' has been owned by the museum since 1940. Recognized as one of the finest prehistoric sculptures found in the United States, Sandy has been featured in national and international exhibits and publications. The statue was shown in a 1941 issue of Time magazine, on a U.S. postage stamp marking the 2004 opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and in the 2004 and 2005 Art Institute of Chicago's exhibit 'Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand' that recognized masterpieces of prehistoric Native American art. In 2014 Gov. Bill Haslam named the figure Tennessee's official state artifact.

The second statue, plowed up on the same Wilson County farm in the late 1930s, is believed to be have been carved as the female counterpart to the McClung's figure. Slightly smaller, she sits with one hand atop each knee.

The statues were carved by a master artist between 1250 and 1350 AD as a pair of important, sacred objects for Native American people living in the Mississippian period. They would have been shown together in their original community, said McClung Director Jeff Chapman.

'She is clearly the mate to the male,' said Chapman last week. 'If you look at the statues, they are absolutely identical in treatment of the ears, the faces, the wrinkles around the eyes, the lips.' The pair is at the 1327 Circle Park Drive museum on the University of Tennessee campus through December. They are exhibited in a case at the entrance to the museum's 'Archaeology and the Native People of Tennessee' gallery.

Carthage, Tenn., collector John C. Waggoner Jr. loaned the female statue to the museum and offered a purchase option the museum must exercise by the end of the year.

The sandstone statues were reunited recently for the Tennessee State Museum's exhibit 'Ancestors: Ancient Native American Sculptures of Tennessee' that ended this May. It was the second time they'd been together since their discovery. In the last 50 years the pair was also together for a meeting of Tennessee archaeologists.

Chapman knew about the female sculpture but hadn't seen it until the state museum exhibit. When he did, he was inspired to give it a home at McClung. 'I said to myself, 'They have to be reunited, and we need to acquire her and made her accessible and visible to our visitors and the people of Tennessee,' ' he said.

The museum is asking major benefactors to help raise what Chapman called 'a significant sum' to buy the statue. UT would also help with the purchase, he said. 'It is a one-of-a-kind piece of art.'

The statues were two of four figures plowed up by farmers at the Sellers farm. The Sellers sold the female figure to Lillard Yeaman, a Smith County sheriff and amateur archeologist. At one point, the statue was shown in the window of a Carthage filling station. Yeaman sold the statue to Waggoner.

In 1940 the McClung bought the male statue and a second, different female figure from the tenant farmer who found them. That female statue has more abstract features and undeveloped lower torso. She's likely the mate to the site's fourth discovered figure, a male statue owned privately, Chapman said.

Paired statues were important to prehistoric Native American societies in the Middle South and are believed to have represented founding ancestors. They likely would have been associated with an important civic building, Chapman said. Spanish explorers wrote of finding such figures in a funeral hut that stored the bones of deceased chiefs, he said. Another famous pair of statues, carved of white marble and painted, was found in the Etowah Mounds in Georgia.

The Sellers farm is now a state archeological site and part of the Long Hunter State Park near Hermitage.

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